


Both our eyes lock to the tide

by Itohan



Series: New Aot fanfics [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Annie-Centric, Background Character Death, Character Study, EreAnnie, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone is Dead, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loss of Identity, Manga Spoilers, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Non-Canonical Character Death, Past Annie Leonhart/Eren Yeager, References to Depression, Self-Reflection, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Manga Spoilers, The Rumbling (Shingeki no Kyojin), Tragedy, You Have Been Warned, the kids are not alright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29141253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itohan/pseuds/Itohan
Summary: In a world where Annie, Mikasa and Armin are all that’s left, Annie dreams of Eren.——-A story where everyone is dead. A story of inevitability. And all Annie cando is to reflect on the life she has come to let pass. Because she knows hers is a story where there are no happy endings.
Relationships: Annie Leonhart/Eren Yeager, Armin Arlert & Annie Leonhart, Mikasa Ackerman & Annie Leonhart, Mikasa Ackerman & Armin Arlert
Series: New Aot fanfics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047742
Kudos: 17





	Both our eyes lock to the tide

‘The Plan’ was the unspoken glue holding the group together. And when their emotions were threatening to burst out of the seams it was the one thing holding them in check. 

“Because we have to,” Armin decided.  
But Annie knew the truth, the reason why they stayed awaiting their death. Because everyone else was gone.

Steam. Steam everywhere as far their eyes could see. They knew there was no escaping. So they stayed and waited for the rumbling to come. 

Thunderous thuds only grew closer with every heartbeat and the shirts on their backs stuck to them like a second skin. 

When her eyes finally burned with a lifetime of repressed tears Annie couldn’t decide whether to blame the salty air or the heat. Her feet carried her over to a puddle before she knew it. 

She didn’t want them to see her cry.

The distorted reflection staring back at her was foreign, wrong, inhuman. Annie’s bruised lips were burning and so was the sky. Those cuts would never have the time to heal and yet they would never scar. She couldn’t even look human in her last moments. Annie allowed her right hand to brush over the tight markings along her eyes. Monsters. All of them.

Two meters away from Mirror-Annie stood her two companions, holding onto each other as the world burned down around them. Annie couldn’t help but stare. Armin was pulling Mikasa closer into his embrace, muffling her cries with his shoulder, keeping his own behind his lips. He didn’t know the wind had carried over his cries towards Annie earlier this night. But she wouldn’t say anything now. Why would she? This was goodbye. Goodbye to the world as they knew it. Annie’s eyes fell shut and she let herself believe someone were holding her too. While her hair was fluttering in the storm, she could almost imagine a voice lovingly calling her name.

_“Annie.”_

In her mind that someone was Eren, because it would always be Eren. If she could, she would be laughing right now and she felt like crying too. She had never changed. After all this time, she was still the girl she desperately wanted to leave behind in that crystal. After all this time Eren had never left her heart. His hands resided around it with an iron grip while his secret kisses pulsated through her veins with every beat.

She was going to die for a world that had never loved her, but even if it had, she wouldn’t have loved it back. 

All she could ask for was that whatever was going to be left behind after all of this was a world worth dying for. In the end there had been nothing left for her in this one anyway. Her last, desperate **hope** was to not have died for **nothing**. A last dream to cling to. If her death meant Eren’s dream would come true, so be it. 

**Dying for hope.  
Who would have thought?**

In seconds her life would be cut short and there would be no one to remember the three of them. And who would even do remember her? Who would remember the world they grew up in? Her and Eren’s world had never been the same and yet they were. Now neither existed.

Then there and now she realized she misses him... her Eren. The Eren that would always stay fifteen in her mind, never growing up, never changing. If only she had never left him behind to slowly turn into that **monster**. Now she knew. She should have stepped down into the dark tunnel and joined him when he begged her to. She wanted nothing more... To be in that moment once again with him.

Would he have thought she could ever cry for him? He had probably thought she’d never stoop so low. Hadn’t she been invincible in his eyes? If only that girl were here in her stead. Instead here was Annie, just Annie. Scared Annie, sad Annie, dying Annie. _Eren’s_ Annie.

The caged beast in her hoped he would feel her pain when he realized that in the end he had been the one to kill everyone he cared about. 

“Annie.”  
At the call of her name Annie stood up to embrace Mikasa, leaving behind the other Annie in her muddy puddle. 

In one second Annie was already opening her steaming lips, desperate to ask the other woman one last question - in the other Mikasa’s eyes met Armin’s, giving him the silent permission he had been waiting for.

_Then their world lights up in bright yellow light and Annie is burning. Mikasa burns with her, joining her in one last scream as they rip apart._

Armin’s heart burned alongside them as his Titan grew in size until it was indistinguishable from the others walking alongside the shore. He had fulfilled his promise to Mikasa and given her a quick death. Now he had fulfill the one he had given Eren all those years ago.

The giants advanced,leaving behind only a trail of steaming footprints.

_[Would he ever cry for me? ]_

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last October when I was really depressed and man I’m still salty we stillhaven’t had Eren and Annie interacting with each other in any way since then. Which is quite ironic since he doesn’t even appear in this fic lmao


End file.
